The Francis Crick Papers

Title:

Letter from James D. Watson to Francis Crick

Description:

This letter was written at the outset of the conflict between Watson and Crick over the publication of Watson's account of their discovery of the double helix. In his letter Watson also reported recent protein sequencing data, the kinds of established scientific communication that for the next year and a half was to be pushed aside by the controversy over Watson's book.

Item is handwritten.

Number of Image Pages:

2 (342,358 Bytes)

Date:

1966-05-10 (May 10, 1966)

Creator:

Watson, James D.

Recipient:

Crick, Francis

Source:

Original Repository: Wellcome Library for the History and Understanding of Medicine. Francis Harry Compton Crick Papers

URL: http://archives.wellcome.ac.uk/

Rights:

Reproduced with permission of James D. Watson.

Subject:

Medical Subject Headings (MeSH):: DNA; Ethics, Professional

Exhibit Category:

The Discovery of the Double Helix, 1951-1953

Relation:

Letter from Francis Crick to James D. Watson (and notes concerning Watson's book, "The Double Helix") (March 31, 1966)

Box Number: 75

Folder Number: PP/CRI/I/3/8/4

Unique Identifier:

SCBBLP

Document Type:

Letters (correspondence)

Language:

English

Format:

application/pdf

image/tif

Physical Condition:

Good

Series: Publication

SubSeries: Other Publications

SubSubSeries: Watson, The Double Helix

Folder: [Correspondence Concerning Publication]

Transcript:

May 10, 1966

Dear Francis

My return was delayed for over a week due to a persistant [sic] flu which did not disappear. Hence my failure to return via England. I most appreciated your comments on my book, most of which I assume your memory is more correct. On several I am not sure -- (e.g. Odile certainly did the decorations on the other hand, the fact that most of the dancers would be black was certainly an inducement that it might be fun --) In several cases I'm sure I'm right. e.g. Bragg himself told me that he avoided the tea room for fear of hearing your voice. Now I suspect I need about one month of steady work to make the corrections -- much rewriting of the first 9 chapters -- Doing this in Geneva seems silly so I shall probably put off the task until mid summer.

We sent a copy of Capyechi's new end group data to Marchev [?] it

[END PAGE ONE]

[BEGIN PAGE TWO]

definitely establishs [sic] that the following NH2 terminal sequences exist

f-neth-ala-

f-neth-ser

very little of any f-neth-neth exists

given Keller's end group data. I suspect in time

f-neth-tlr

will be found. These structures no as hot chance [?] that the beginning sequences may be

AUGGC . . . f-neth-ala

AUGUC f-neth-ser

AUGAC f-neth-tlr

Could this be a way to control the rate at which RNA polymerase attachs [sic] to cistron operors [?]?

Trust Odile is now completely recovered.

See you in CSH

Jim

Metadata Last Modified Date:

2006-11-15

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